If you know any ex-pats who live in Thailand, you might sometimes hear them referring to themselves strangely as ‘mushrooms’.
It means that they feel that they are being ‘kept in the dark’… not told what is going on on a daily basis. You see, very few ex-pats in Thailand actually speak enough Thai to say more than ‘Hello’. Thai is a very difficult language, even for a linguist like me, so the average Anglo- Saxon has little chance… especially the older ones. Anglo-Saxons are renowned for not learning foreign languages, but in the case of Thai, most ‘falang’, which basically means Caucasian, struggle with the language.
By the way, I am Welsh, a Celt, and we are taught two languages from a very early age, so that makes it a bit easier for us, but it is still hard. Thai bears no relevance whatsoever to any European language.
Mushrooms
Anyway, mushrooms… I too have experienced the mushroom effect, but most of the time welcome it, because I need time alone to be able to write my posts like this and books. However, what I really, really don’t like is being left out of things without being asked.
For example, the day that I am writing this is St. Valentine’s Day, but my wife is sitting with her friends and I am sitting alone.
This is not acceptable, but routinely passes as normal, leaving ex-pats who live in remote villages feeling lonely and ignored.
If it hadn’t been for my book-writing, I would have left the village for the city years ago, because Thai women daren’t leave their men alone, or like mushrooms in the dark there, because there are so many bars full of so many girls looking for a way out, and that usually means pairing up with a falang.
The Thai girl has the whip hand in her village, but the mushroom has it in the city.
**UPDATE** There are no Thais working here now and the owner still owes wages from August 2017 – AVOID!!!
The Thai-Lanna Restaurant is situated at Calle Francisco Cano 80, which is the third street back from the sea in Los Boliches, a suburb of Fuengirola on the Costa del Sol in south-eastern Spain. It is open Monday to Saturday from seven until eleven p.m. but the closing time is flexible (and the staff arrive at six) and if you ring +34 952 587 139, ask for Jose before Sunday, he may open for you on their day off.
The decor in the Thai-Lanna is exquisite – there is no other word for it. When I took my homesick Thai wife there, she kept touching the woodwork and artefacts murmuring: “Oh, this is real Thai!’ She must have said it twenty times before our food arrived.
There is a wide selection of food and I can vouch for the fact that it is authentic Thai too, because I know the two chefs. They are both middle-aged Thai ladies who grew up in Thailand, and in Thailand, ALL females (and most men) learn to cook from a very early age. In addition to that, I lived in a northern Thai village for thirteen years.
Needless to say, but I will anyway, as this is a review, the food was superb.
The name of the restaurant needs some explanation, but I will jump to the second word first, ‘Lanna’, which is actually two words, but Thai does not leave spaces between words. “Lan” means a million, and ‘Na” means rice field(s), since Thai does not use plurals. So, Lanna means “The Land of a Million Rice Fields”, which was a kingdom stretching across northern Thailand and beyond between about 1292 and 1607. “Thai” means free, so Thailand is the land of the free, and Thais are “The Free People’.
Give the Thai-Lanna Restaurant a try, you will not find a better or more authentic northern-Thai style, which is not as hot as the food from Isaan or the south west, although if you want it hot, just tell the waitress. Those ladies in the kitchen can cook anything Thai.
Five Stars out of Five.
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Thai Catering Services in Fuengirola and Los Boliches
Thai Catering Services in Fuengirola have launched!
The Three Lions in Fuengirola is now offering authentic Thai Sweet Green Curry made by Neem of the above-mentioned company in Fuengirola and Los Boliches.
Nick and Luke of the Three Lions took delivery of two of Neem’s home-made Thai meals this week, so they are now offering Kaeng Kiouw Wan (Thai Sweet Green Curry) and rice and Pom Pia (Spring Rolls) the latter with Thailand’s most popular accompaniment to Pom Pia, a hot and sweet sauce.
Thai Catering Services
When asked about the range of food she can provide, she said: ‘I can cook any Thai food you want to order, but at the moment, I have selected eight of Thailand’s most famous and popular traditional dishes. I have chosen to prepare them with chicken because it is the least likely meat to offend, but I can adapt the recipes for pork, beef or prawns if someone wants it. The same with the Spring Rolls. My standard Spring Rolls are vegetarian, but I can easily add meat or prawns if people want’.
Why not pop into the Three Lions this evening to sample the ambience and Neem’s traditional, authentic Thai cuisine, or give her a call and arrange for your own order to be delivered to your premises?
You can find out more about what Neem has to offer on her Facebook pages here:
For those of you who have been following the eighteen-month epic story of our, and in particular, my Thai wife’s, quest for residency in Spain, we had to go to the police station again today for what I thought was the final time. Just to fill in quickly for those of you with a bad memory or those who just came in on this saga:
We have already:
1) satisfied the Spanish Embassy in Bangkok with all the proof that ‘anyone in Europe could ever expect’ (their words)
2) satisfied the police in Malaga with a load more papers and
3) satisfied the local ‘National Police’ in Fuengirola, where we live with seven more sets of papers including photos and proof of payment of the fee of €10.30. At least, the delivery of these last papers and the donation of fingerprints, were the point of today’s visit.
Long process
Monday is the worst day to visit official places, but we had been told to be there on Monday, for an appointment between ten thirty and noon. We arrived at ten thirty-three and there were a hundred people in a queue, which I knew from previous visits was unlikely to be hours – we had been where those poor sods were several times over the past year, but we had progressed to a different level.
So, I tried to ask what I had to do. After all, I knew that I had an appointment.
The first guard pointed at a counter on the wall and told me to take a ticket, but when I asked him where from, he didn’t know. I asked two more, but they didn’t speak English. I could see people being fingerprinted in a room, so guessed that we had to be in there, but when I entered, I was told to get out.
After thirty minutes, someone took pity on me, and said that if I had an appointment, then I already had a number. I found it, but it was 29 and they were dealing with number 33.
I entered the fingerprinting room again with my number, but was told to get out again. The helpful desk sergeant from before told me that I was now number 40, so, happy at last, we sat down and awaited our new turn.
Bureaucracy
It came forty-five minutes later and we entered the fingerprinting room again, but legitimately this time. Everything was going well as he checked our papers, and then he said something I didn’t understand, but he bundled us our papers and led us out of the door to a woman who spoke English.
‘The price of the Spanish Residency card has gone up’, she said.
‘Ok,’ I asked bewildered, ‘by how much? I’ll pay it now’.
“Eleven cents,” she replied smiling, “but we do not take money here you have to go to a bank’. She scribbled something in Spanish on a piece of paper, saying, ‘Give this to the printers a few doors down, they will know what to do. Take the paper from them to the bank, pay it and report back here to your happy policemen before twelve. Next!’
I looked at my phone, it was eleven twenty, and the nearest bank was ten minutes walk. We hurried to the printers, but it was ‘closed for holidays’. We went to my friendly estate agent, George, but he couldn’t seem to get it printed. We went as fast as I can to our solicitor’s, and she printed out the form for us. Then it was off to the bank which was now between us and the police station. They charged us €10.30 to pay the eleven cents, and Neem, my wife, had to run to the police station leaving me to catch her up.
Residencia
When I arrived, they were almost done. ‘It’s funny,’ laughed the woman from before… it happens every year!’ I didn’t think it was funny at all. ‘Still, it’s all over now. Your wife can pick up her card some time after 45 days… between one and two pm. Bye-bye’.
This might not sound like a big deal to you, but if we had missed today’s appointment, we wouldn’t have got another appointment for at least three weeks and probably six, by which time some of our papers might have expired.
Neem is now in the clear and we are so grateful for that.
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The lady behind Fuengirola Home Help Services, Pranom Jones, better known as Neem, today launched a new service to add to her already impressive array – home Thai catering services in Fuengirola and Los Boliches.
“Thai food is widely acknowledged to be one of the best cuisines in the world,” said Neem with an air of pride, and I have been cooking it, village style, since I was a schoolgirl! Every day of my life for about forty years!”
“I can cook real Thai style for those that want it that way, and basically I am talking about hot, but perfectly spiced, or I can tone it down a bit, as I have been doing for my British husband of fifteen years, but still retain the authenticity of the Thai meal”.
“It all depends on what the client wants. I can cook any Thai dish – from the north, south, centre or Isaan, because I come from the north, but worked in the south with many people from Isaan and the more commercial centre”.
When asked about the details, Neem replied, “The easiest for me, is to walk into a fully stocked kitchen with the food that I have bought to cook the meal. However, I understand that not every bar has cooking facilities or even a license to cook, so in those circumstances, I am willing to cook in my house and deliver it. I am very flexible, just call and see what we can work out…. satisfaction and authenticity is guaranteed… I only left Thailand a few months ago and I have been cooking Thai all my life.
“I want people in Fuengirola to realise that Thai country cooking is fantastic, but that they do not have to burn the skin off their tongues to appreciate it. Ask my husband, he eats the milder version”.
If you would like to know more about Neem’s Thai Catering Services in Fuengirola and Los Boliches, please head over to her Facebook page and contact her on the following page:
We went to the 2017 Fair of the Peoples in Fuengirola yesterday just hours after it opened. It was already quite busy, as the photo shows, despite it being Thursday afternoon, during the Siesta time.
The idea of the Fair of the Peoples is to shine a spotlight on the peoples of the various countries of the world and showcase their different cultures and cuisines.
Of course, not every country was represented, but dozens were. I am Welsh – British – so I naturally looked out for our ‘bar’, but there was nothing for Wales, Scotland or England or even the UK. Ireland did have a large representation though. I was later told that the Fuengirola council wanted 10,000 Euros for a UK bar, and no-one was prepared to pay it.
Neem in the Thai bar Fair of the People 2017
My wife is Thai, and there was a Thai bar.When I say ‘bar’, I mean a small, four-walled building with a roof, which houses a bar, a kitchen, a shop and a dance floor. The countries put on various typical cultural events inside, which are free to enter. There was authentic Thai food and bottled Thai beerin the Thai bar.
I remember seeing bars for Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Ireland, Mexico, Paraguay and the USA, but there were dozens more. The atmosphere was very up-beat and enthusiastic, reminiscent of carnival.
There was also a fair ground with a large Ferris wheel, dodgems, merry-go-rounds and stalls. Candy Floss, hamburgersand hot dogsabounded!
The weather today, 24-hours after our visit, is dreadful. The worst for months! It hasn’t stopped raining for twenty hours, so that is a real shame. Tomorrow, Saturday, there will be a procession around town, and my wife was asked to help represent Thailand in traditional Thai costume, which one of the other women can provide.
I hope that the weather has cleared up for them by then, although it shouldn’t affect the activities inside the various countries’ bars.
*** Update*** I have just read on the official website for the XXIII rd. Fair of the Peoples that the parade has been cancelled due to a ‘Yellow Rain Alert’.
I have lived in Thailand for thirteen years, so I should have known better, but I had thought that there would be some sort of a fuss made. After all, I have made it clear that I will probably never come back, and that my wife may not make it back for a couple of years.
Our Last Night in Thailand looks as if it will be me sitting alone in a shop drinking beer, my wife out shopping with her daughter and the rest of the household sleeping.
They do work hard though on shifts at local factories and offices, but still… it is our last night in Thailand, and I had expected more.
That was stupid of me though, because Thais rarely say ‘Goodbye’. At our wedding party, 120 Thais slipped away into the night without saying a word. The only ones who did were the Canadian and the Irishman.
It’s a funny thing though, because if I do it to them, they ask what the matter is. My wife didn’t believe me when I explained my theory to her, but to prove my point, I left a family party without saying ‘Good night’ once, and apparently, the topic of conversation for the next ten minutes was what had upset me.
I don’t mean to say anything by this, it is just an observation.
Perhaps it is because my Thai family are villagers, and so they know that they will see each other again soon, but I lived in that village for thirteen years too, so why didn’t they grant me the same privilege?
It is not important, but it is one of the unexplained mysteries about Thailand that I will take to Europe with me tomorrow, probably never to be resolved.
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All the best,
Owen Podcast: Our Last Night in Thailand
I arrived in Thailand thirteen years ago, so I have some knowledge of the subject of Thai W.C.’s, but I have also had to guess some aspects of this article, as you will see.
When I got here in the village, the overwhelming majority of W.C.’s in the village, consisted of a French-style hole in the ground and a 4x2x4 foot concrete receptacle for water, which was usually fed with a dripping tap. The container is insurance against the water being cut off, but the water also assumes the ambient temperature, and loses much of the chlorine in it.
Our water supply was always cut between nine a.m. and one, and often between midnight and five, which is when farmers get up.
We installed a modern Western bathroom in our house with a thousand litre fully enclosed resin tank outside. On the face of it, our expensive solution was much better, but we needed a pump, so had no water when the electricity was cut. There is a reason for the old ways, and it is not always a lack of money. Furthermore, the flow from the dripping tap is too weak to activate the water meters, so most people get free water. I do not 🙂 as our tank fills like a toilet cistern in short sharp bursts.
Over the last ten years, most houses have been upgraded in our village, and our style is now most prevalent, although with a vestige of tradition.
Many modern Thai bathrooms are fed by an external tank and pump, but also have the concrete receptacle. Now, that we have a granddaughter, her mother has placed a large bowl full of water in the W.C. to make up for the missing concrete one.
Thais have their own unique method of hygiene in the toilet, which deserves a mention. They use paper, like the Brits, and wash themselves lime the French, but they don’t use a bidet; they use a small showerhead attached to the cistern, and use paper to dry themselves. It is extremely effective and efficient.
One last thing. Our bowl is about nine inches high, and there was a tiny frog sitting on the rim today contemplating a swim (I assume), whereas Thais’ bunkers are four feet high so that not many animals can get into them.
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I cannot profess to be an expert on Thai television, because I can’t bear to watch it, but I have been force fed portions of it over the twelve years that I have been here. Naturally, having spent the last twelve years here, I cannot compare Thai television with its counterpart back in the UK.
Not that I ever liked British daytime television, when I saw it. One of the problems here for me is that daytime and evening television seem to be the same. Perhaps they just repeat the previous evening’s schedule the following afternoon. I don’t know.
Thai television relies a lot on soaps and game shows, but especially soaps. However, it is hard for someone like me to follow them because the same actors will often play in several of them.
I once read someone’s breakdown of the plots of all Thai soaps and it was spot on, but I can neither remember nor find it for you. However, I will try my own version.
Most of the soaps are dominated by awful rich families slapping each other about and crying. This usually comes about because a rich boy almost runs down or rescues from a fate worse than death, a beautiful poor girl. He falls in love with her at first sight, but is, of course, already engaged.
She, on the other hand, takes a lot of persuading to like him, but after a few forced embraces and kisses, succumbs. This leads to the girlfriend and (both) sets of parents taking conflicting stances.
And that sums up all the soap storylines in a nutshell.
However, the worst aspect of Thai television is shared with many European countries and that is the dubbing of foreign films. Dubbing does a nation a huge disservice. I learned Dutch to a passable level in months by reading Asterix The Gaul and watching films with subtitles. It is surprising how many words stick when you hear the English and follow the subtitles matching them up.
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I saw something this evening that, I think, says a lot about the Thai smile, but perhaps first, I had better say something about the Thai smile itself. Thailand is known as the Land of Smiles, in the same way that Wales is famous as the Land of Song.
Most visitors assume that this means that Thai people are friendly, which they are like most people in most other countries. However, the Thai smile is used in other ways too. Mainly to paper over embarrassing moments.
So, for example, in the West, if someone falls over, we help them up and show concern, but in Thailand, they would smile (read ‘laugh’), and help them up. This is not callous, it is meant to save the face of the person who was stupid enough to fall over through not taking enough care.
With older people, that Thai smile works well. You laugh the problem off and the faller limps home, smile on his face and ‘face’ intact.
OK, this is where I think that the Thai smile does not work well, and which I witnessed this evening. A twelve year old boy was riding a motorcycle (and that is another problem). He turns into the shop where I am having a beer, buys something and remounts.
Unable to control the machine, he crashes in to the shop’s three rubbish bins sending the contents flying. The shopkeeper and two shoppers smiled (laughed) at him, told him everything was fine (to save his face) and off he went laughing.
He should never have been driving that machine. OK, but forgot about that. That boy went away thinking that it was acceptable to lose control of a heavy motorcycle! He now thinks that adults don’t mind if he behaves like an idiot!
In my town, he would have got a clip around the head and the bike would have been impounded by the shopkeeper, whether she reported it to the police or not. That boy would have left that shop completely aware that his behaviour had been unacceptable.
It is a major difference between Westerners and Thais and one that I think is a problem, an obstacle to their development in more ways than one.
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This has been a strange year so far, but I know that it has many more stressful moments in for me and my wife. That is because we have chosen to return to Europe for a few years and apart from Neem’s visa, we have no friends there any longer and nowhere to live.
Not to speak of work… However, this year has been unusual so far for two completely different reasons. It has been very cold (for Thailand, but it did get down to 12c one day) and many deaths – someone has died in our village every week this year. All old people, but it is still unheard of. However, as a typical funeral lasts seven days, the deceased have provided a lot of entertainment.
That will take some explanation. Thais feel sadness when a loved one dies, but they see that as selfish. They are sad because they will miss the loved one. As Buddhists, they believe in Heaven and reincarnation, so they are only sad for themselves, spouses and children, not for the departed. As I write this, the monks have just arrived at the funeral two doors up. The deceased lady departed yesterday. She will be cremated on day five.
Days six and seven are to wish her a speedy journey to wherever she is going next. My daughter-in-law has just stopped by the shop where I am having a beer to inform me that our family has just contributed its share to the death toll.
My wife was brought up by her grandmother, which is not uncommon here, and her mother’s sister lived next door. Her husband died fifteen minutes ago from sclerosis. He was expected to live another month, but didn’t make it. That will hurt Neem.
However, I will not be able to comfort her tonight, she will be learning how to embalm and take care of her uncle’s body from the older ladies in the family. It has been a lonely year for me, because although not all the deceased were family, Neem has played as full a role as she could in all the ceremonies, because her mother is not young and she wants a good turn-out for her, when the time comes.
I haven’t seen such an unusual pattern of deaths since the week we got married eight years ago this month. My Welsh family came over for it and eight Thais died in the village. We were hoping that they wouldn’t blame us, because Thais are very superstitious.
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This is the last day of Christmas, so the trimmings will be coming down all over the Western World this evening. Along with the rain and the snow, so I have heard. Here in Thailand, it is a sunny, but cool evening of 31c and very nice it is too in the garden with a cold beer. Many of the houses I can see are sporting a Happy New Year and a Merry Christmas banner, but they don’t take them down until the monsoons do it for them in May.
The motivation is more how to get maximum value for money than laziness though, since there are at least three reasons for wishing people a Happy New Year in the first four months of the year that I know of.
Thais have adopted the Western New Year in January; then forty-odd percent of Thais have some Chinese ancestry, and he Chinese New Year is usually in February (I think); and finally, the best Thai holiday of the year, Songkhran, the Thai New Year in the middle of April.
Of the three, Songkhran is my favourite and I think that 99% of people who live here would agree. It is as if the whole nation becomes happy in the celebration of its cultural heritage.
So, it often seems that Thailand bounces along the first four months from one Happy New Year to the next, since many Thais get a substantial time off work for January 1st; the Chinese festival lasts a week and Songkhran is celebrated for at least three days, but up to ten, depending upon the location.
If you want to treat yourself to an exotic winter or spring holiday, why not try Thailand next time? I’m sure that you will not regret it.
By the way, ‘Sawut dee, Bpi Mai’ – Happy New Year – whichever one you have just celebrated.
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I am not going to claim that this idea is revolutionary or even new, but it occurred to me yesterday that the main difference between books and newspapers is fact and ideas. A friend was telling me that he gave up reading books years ago and only reads free online publications these days. I said that I thought he was subjecting himself to only the depressing part of reading, and missing out on the uplifting ideas in many books.
Newspapers are about how many people died in which wars and where; how many people have lost their jobs; rapes; murders; government cuts… they are depressing and don’t attempt to be anything else.
It strikes me that reading only that seven days a week just because it is free, without the counterbalance of excitement and hope for the future that is in many books is dangerous for the equilibrium of the mind.
‘How many times have you read a newspaper that you couldn’t put down?’ I asked him. ‘Compare that with the number of books that engrossed you to the point that you were sorry to reach the end’.
I do not expect a conversion, but he will go away and think about it.
After that 80mm grasshopper the other day, came another new animal today. It is in the picture here. A
Tree Shrew
tree shrew. When I first saw it, I thought it was a rat, but they are rare – I have only seen one in eleven years. Then it jumped into a tree and looked very at home, so I thought ‘a squirrel’. My wife said ‘no’, and gave me the Thai name (gra-dtae) and someone on the Internet translated it for me.
My NaNoWriMo entry, ‘A Night in Annwn’ is coming on nicely at 57% complete. It is about a Welsh sheep farmer, who undergoes a near-death experience. It will be released on December 10th, but you can pre-order it here in case you forget.
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I don’t have any specific subject to talk about today, so this piece will be a ramble, as I sit in my favourite local shop enjoying a beer. August has always been my favourite month – my birthday and school holidays probably started that off. In fact, when my mother was alive, we had three birthdays in August my youngest brother’s on the 7th, mine on the 14th and Mum’s on the 22nd with August Bank Holiday the following weekend. Later, my father remarried and we acquired a little sister who was born on August 1st, so there was a party every week. In my twenties and thirties, I used to try to take the whole month off, because I also had friends with birthdays then too.
These days, living in Thailand, two members of my new family, who all live within twenty metres of us, were also born in August, but it is not the same, is it? Not when you’re old and retired. Nevertheless, August is still my favourite month, and I don’t like to see it give way to September.
August is also a lovely time to come to Thailand, if you are planning a holiday for next year. It is hot during the day time, but it usually rains a little at dusk which reduces the temperature to make the evenings and nights more comfortable. By the way, don’t make the mistake of thinking that rain is something to sigh at. I have been under many bathroom showers in Europe that produce a colder flow of water than Thai clouds. Thai rain is never cold, except possibly in the far north or in the mountains, but definitely not on the coast.
Kids are back in school in August in Thailand, which makes certain attractions less noisy, especially the beaches. In fact, August is considered low season, so hotels are even more reasonably priced, and flights are cheaper, but all the amenities you’d expect to find in a premium holiday destination are open.
Yes, August is still my favourite month although for different reasons these days than fifty years ago.
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I have formally studied six languages to fluency, taught myself another and am now learning Thai and Thai is hard enough for me! I perfectly understand how difficult pronunciation must be for most other students of it.
However, I hear it every day, which should make it easier – trying to learn Thai and the correct pronunciation of it abroad a few hours a week would be impossible.
People will often say something to me in English, but it makes no sense or I get it wrong and this is often because people try to translate their own language word for word.
So Thais miss a lot of words out that we in the West are looking for to complete the sense: like: the verb ‘to be’, and personal pronouns like I, we, he etc.
A tip is to assume they are talking about themselves and their own first, in the present tense.
So ‘Love Mum’ becomes ‘I love my Mum’
‘Go town’ becomes ‘I am going into town later on today’.
‘Go home’ (bpai bahn) usually means ‘Let’s go home’ unless it’s spoken angrily 🙂
Further complications in Thai pronunciation are that Thai words can only end with one of six sounds (so ‘football’ becomes ‘footbon’) and they don’t aspirate the last letter (a bit like the French), they swallow them. So, ‘house’ becomes ‘hou’; screen becomes skee; bike becomes buy, whereas English-speakers tend to explode the ending of words (to mark their ending, like the German glottal stop).
If you listen really closely you can hear them say the last letters, but it was very hard for me and I’m not deaf.
A man asked me what ‘funtock’ was in English the other day, I said ‘rain’.
‘Ray’ he kept repeating to himself.
‘No,’ I corrected ‘Rainnneh’
He pronounced it with such a heavy ‘N’ that no-one would ever understand him whichever version of the word he used.
However, he has a rotten memory, so it doesn’t matter. He’s been asking me words for ten years and has never remembered one of them.
Neem just told me that it’s ‘Buy Mum Day’.
‘What?’ I asked not so incredulously as I would have done ten years ago suspecting the pronunciation.
‘Buy for Mum Day,’ she said trying to be helpful.
‘It was Mothers’ Day on the 12th,’ I reminded her, knowing that I was missing something.
‘No, keep fit, Bicycle for Mums’ Day. Can I borrow your bike?’
How can you possibly guess that from the words ‘Buy Mum Day’?
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I have been living in Thailand for eleven years, and learning the Thai language organically from day one with the help of a ‘Teach Yourself’ book and a wife. However, I am still not there yet, which makes Thai the hardest to learn of the eight languages I have studied. German and French took four years or so, Welsh six, Latin also six, Russian four, yet all to a higher standard than I now speak Thai after eleven years. It is just so different, and one of those differences is that it is such a succinct language.
I don’t know how much you know about speaking foreign languages, so please forgive me, if I am teaching you how to suck eggs, but amateur linguists, unlike the experts from places like the Hungarian translation company, tend to translate words , whereas they should be translating ideas. This is also true of newcomers to a language, ie before they learn how the natives think.
I am still at that stage in speaking Thai, so my Thai sounds odd to Thais. Yes, my accent is not good, and that doesn’t help, but it is not a huge problem with people who know me. The problem is a tendency towards flowery language – verbosity.
For example, we might say, ‘The wife’s mother is not well’ (six words), but in Thai that is ‘Wife’s mother not well’. ‘I have to be going now’, becomes ‘Drong bai’. It is such a succinct language.
‘It smells good’ – ‘Hom’.
‘It smells bad’ – ‘Min’.
People compliment me on my Thai every week, that is a sign of their nature rather than my ability, but I did receive a real compliment the other day and all she said was, ‘Good. Speaks short like Thais’.
High praise indeed.
Does that mean that speech loses something; that flowery prose is not possible; that Thais are not creative in their everyday conversations?
I don’t think so, just that they don’t expect to spell everything out to their interlocutors. They expect them to be paying attention. If you are talking about your own mother, why keep repeating the word ‘my’?
In a succinct language like Thai, for a flowery-speaking foreigner like me, this is a hard thing to get used to, and accounts for why foreigners have difficulty understanding Thais.
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Our family gathering is not in my mother-in-law’s this year, but in her sister-in-law’s next door but one. In Thai villagers, or at least in the ones around here, families tend to occupy an area or even a street sometimes, so all our lot live within a hundred yards of each other.
That would sound unusual to an average Brit, but when you understand that villages in Thailand were often caused by one or two men cutting down a patch of jungle and building a home, it becomes logical. As their children got married, they would cut a bit more of the adjoining forest down and so on. As in-laws joined the throng, the patch became a village and every family had its own locale.
I enjoyed myself too much to post yesterday, if you know what I mean. We, the whole extended family, went to a Muay Thai boxing tournament in the Watt in a neighbouring village. It’s not really my thing, but my wife likes it and so do most of the men in our family. Sitting at the back like I was, I didn’t see a single punch thrown, but I did enjoy the atmosphere.
I think we got back at about midnight, but I’m not sure, and went straight to bed.
The same is probably true for many people, as the village is unusually quiet.
July sales were the worst for thirteen months, and, even stranger than that, I didn’t sell a single copy of any of the five volumes of Behind The Smile in the USA in the whole month, and that has never happened since I wrote volume one in April 2012.
It is hard to believe that I couldn’t persuade even one person out of 300,000,000 to buy just one book out of that series over thirty-one days…
This is going to be a collection of random observations about today’s Thailand, because not enough has been happening in my life in the last twenty-four hours to fill even a short post such as this series, which you will find listed under the category ‘Diary’ on this blog, should you wish to look up past posts.
Two days ago, or was it yesterday? I forget, I started a Facebook Group called ‘Today’s Thailand’; search for it within Facebook and it should pop up. It’s intended for those with an interest in Thailand to chat, ask questions about the place, like a chat room, and get answers from people who should know. It’s free to join, so if it suits you, please come along and sign up.
Remember last week I spoke about inflation here? Well, I just read in the Bangkok Post (English language edition), that the Thai army has opened cheap take-aways on its bases in ‘the Provinces’, selling complete meals for ten to twenty Baht (five to ten pence) to civilians. I haven’t seen one, but it has to be below the cost to make it, whatever it is. I think the nearest army base to us is forty-five kilometres away or my wife would probably go and check it out.
It doesn’t sound like good news for today’s Thailand though, does it?
We, and I mean about ten thousand people in nine or ten related villagers, have now been without water for seven or eight days and, since its Friday evening here, we probably won’t get any until Monday afternoon at the earliest. Bodies, toilets, crockery and clothing are suffering the worst. I’ve been told I have to urinate outside now, and I also learned something that I doubt a lot of Brits know. My wife caught me peeing in a corner out of the way.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked, sounding more than a little annoyed.
“I think that’s pretty obvious,” I replied over my shoulder, the task still in hand, so to speak.
“Yes, but doing it by there will make it smell horrible for weeks and I have to do the gardening”.
“But surely, that’s going to happen wherever I go, isn’t it?”
She looked at me like an idiot child.
“Don’t you know anything?” she asked. “You must pee-pee were the sun shines, because the light kills the bacteria that cause the smell”.
Well, I didn’t know that, I thought privacy was my major concern, but there you go, I learn something new every day in today’s Thailand.
